Transcript

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>> Silicon Valley superstars Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter in Washington Wednesday to defend their platforms amid fears of continued Russian meddling. Their testimony follows Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's grilling about foreign interference earlier this year, but this time there is a twist.>> I think that Google and Facebook and Twitter, I think they treat Conservatives and Republicans very unfairly.

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>> Sandberg and Dorsey's hearing before the Senate Intelligence Community comes as President Trump and other Republicans accuse their social media sites of political bias. And Dorsey is facing a second hearing on Wednesday before the house on political censorship. The back to back hearings again putting the two tech giants on a back foot as they face mounting criticism they haven't done enough to stop foreign misinformation campaigns.

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Reuters' tech correspondent Stephen Nellis.>> So the hearings at Congress tomorrow are really gonna be focused on making sure that these companies are doing everything that they can to prevent influence and meddling by foreign powers in the next election. And then in the house, to also ensure that all voices are being heard on these platforms, whether they're Conservative, Liberal or otherwise.

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>> While Twitter and Facebook executives defend their positions, rival Google will be skipping the showdown.>> The Senate actually asked Google to come testify at the committee hearing, and Google offered a high-ranking legal officer from the company but declined to send Google CEO Sundar Pichai or the CEO of the parent company, Alphabet, Larry Page.

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Now the company did submit some written testimony about things that it's doing to try to be better about foreign influence. But neither of those executives are gonna be there, and the folks in the Senate have said that's not good enough, so they'll be an empty seat.>> Both Democrats and Republicans slammed Google for the snub.

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Meanwhile, President Trump has also accused Google of bias, saying that the search engine promoted negative news articles about him and hid fair media coverage.